9:00 a.m., PST. Mar. 22,2018: Today, in the aftermath of the slaughter of 14 high school students and 3 faculty members, you made an impassioned pitch to a group of state officials meeting in the White House. There you peddled the idea of arming teachers as a way of “hardening” schools against assault rifle-toting intruders bent on murderous mayhem.

As you spoke, you created a fantastical scenario in which Gen. John Kelly was teaching history and saved students by blowing away such a gunman with a weapon conveniently at hand. Your justification for it is that it’s “much less expensive” than hiring armed guards … “and it looks better.” It looks better? I guess you meant, “less like a prison.” But Donald, how many “John Kellys,” with years of training in the use of lethal weapons, do you think there are in the teaching profession? This idea is ludicrous. Save kids' lives on the cheap? NO!

I worked in public high schools for more than 30 years, first as a teacher, then as a counselor. Let me tell you about the typical high-school teachers day:

She arrives, occasionally before daybreak, to prepare. She’s thinking about things like why her students didn’t perform better on the test she graded the night before, what she can do to help the girl in 1st period whose mother died a few days earlier, how she’s going to deal with the 4th- period troublemaker bent on new and ingenious ways of disrupting the class, whether the lesson plans that looked so good last night are going to work as well as she wants for her struggling 6th- period students.

Arriving at her room, she arranges her papers for the day, makes a couple of changes on her 3rd- period seating chart, and jots a few last-minute notes before she goes to the office to check her mailbox where she picks up a slip asking her to call a parent before second period. On the way back to her room she calls the parent and schedules a conference for immediately after school.

The rest of her day is punctuated by bells, students shuffling in, students shuffling out, taking attendance, asking questions, answering questions, returning papers, lecturing, supervising group work, monitoring behavior and attention spans, reading non-verbal cues from 35 (sometimes more) students to assess engagement and understanding, deciding mid-stream how to modify her plans based on the reactions of her students, helping students who’ve been absent get caught up … and on and on and on.

A teacher is expected to be an information provider, disciplinarian, assessor of achievement, administrator, role model, facilitator, and surrogate parent. Adding “gun-toting first responder” to the mix makes no sense.

According to teachthought, a website providing resources and training for instructors, a teacher often makes more than 1,500 decisions a day. That sounds impossible, I know, but presumably it includes things like deciding in the middle of a lecture to move and stand near a disruptive student (a sure-fire way to stop undesirable behavior) instead of calling him out or deciding to review a concept students don’t seem to have grasped instead of moving on as planned—in other words the kinds of decisions teachers make instinctively on the fly.

Speaking to a group a few days after the massacre of 17 people at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, you opined that allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons would deter further attacks and “solve the problem instantly.”

No, Donald, it wouldn’t. Teachers are trained to teach. They’re frequently in motion, walking about the room as they lecture, assisting science students with lab work, roaming the art room to offer feedback here and there. They’re focused on two things: their students and their subject matter--and the interface between the two. Teachers aren’t standing in the front of the classroom, eyes on the door, arms at the ready.

To think that a teacher, even with training, is our best deterrence and a realistic defense against an armed intruder in the chaos of automatic gunfire and frightened students shows an appalling disconnect from the real world, Donald.

Listen to those Parkland students. They're thoughtful, articulate, poised, and remarkably mature. You might do well to emulate them. Enough said.

The sick nature of our politics is nowhere more apparent than in the devastating failure of Congress to pass legislation that will reduce the routine slaughter of the innocent. The road to the D.C. swamp is squishy with wads of greenbacks, and using the ruse of political action committees (PACs), wealthy donors, whether individuals or groups, have virtually no legal limits on the amount of money they can give to support the candidate of their choice.

Thus the National Rifle Association (NRA), a shill for the gun manufacturers, pours millions into PACs to help elect legislators who are only too willing to risk the lives of others in return for their spots in our legislative chambers.

In nine months, we’ll have another general election. All the representatives and about a third of senators will be up for re-election. There are undoubtedly some in those groups who support sensible gun legislation. But support isn’t enough. Perhaps for this current cycle, we should all become single-issue voters. Overwhelming numbers of us support some form of stricter gun control. It’s time we band together to vote for candidates who will do the right thing, regardless of party.

Children lose their lives because the legislators their parents and grandparents expect to protect them value their own careers above the lives of our children. There is no greater depravity.

Donald Trump has gone from reality TV to the star of the darkest fantasy on television. In this fantasy, while basking in what he perceives as the glory of his greatness, here's what else he does:

He surrounds himself with personnel ill-prepared, unqualified, and (now we learn) uncleared by the agency charged with keeping bad guys out of sensitive positions.

Using gutter English, he taunts other countries and disparages immigrants who have come to the U.S. in search of a life where they can make the most of their gifts and talents—and where many have already made tremendous contributions. (Click here to see the story of Chobani, for instance.)

He throws rolls of paper towels to people whose lives and country have been devastated by Hurricane Maria. He plays golf.

He labels Democrats treasonous for their failure to stand and applaud as he ponderously reads a teleprompted speech. (Treason is punishable by death.) “Basically Archie Bunker is president of the United States,” Jon Meacham, Pulitzer price-winning biographer, later opines in an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

Now, having helped his party pass a disastrous “tax reform” which will ramp up the national debt, Trump wants a military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, a parade which would cost millions and would bring to mind the autocrats and their hostage peoples in places like North Korea. He may be Cadet Bone Spur, as some in Congress have dubbed him, but now he fantasizes receiving the salutes of troops as they parade below his reviewing stand. How’s that for overcompensating for your insecurities?

It’s not just pathetic. It’s pathetic taken to a whole new low.

Mike Barnicle, a journalist and political commentator (also speaking on Morning Joe), comments simply, “The American people do not need a parade. They need peace.” If Trump wants to honor the military, Barnicle suggests he take an hour or two and walk through Arlington Cemetery where presumably he might reflect on the enormous sacrifices of those who lie there and the families who lost them.

Others suggest Trump spend the money that would be used on a parade to create scholarships for the children of veterans killed or wounded in battle or set up a fund to help homeless vets. Those steps could make a tremendous difference in the lives of real people.

But those quiet steps wouldn’t give Trump the hour or two of empty glory he so needily craves so I’m not holding my breath waiting for any of that to happen. As I said, pathetic.

Thoughts for Our Time

“Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future.”~Benjamin Disraeli